Melburnian1
Enthusiast
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2013
- Posts
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Presumably our two main domestic airlines and their subsidiaries believe that there is money to be made (or at least revenue to be 'stolen' from the opposition) if one can boast its punctuality is better than the competitor's.
This is even though travellers know that safety is the number one objective and that punctuality measured in this way is an average of all flights and can vary markedly from day to day - flights are not as reliable as a much needed high speed lower east coast rail network would be - and vary hugely by route. For instance, QF has many problems on its Tasmanian routes with the B717s.
QF in particular likes to boast about its supposedly better punctuality. Both operators tend to emphasise 'punctual departures' whereas for travellers the key is 'how late was my flight when it arrived at my destination airport?' Unfortunately though for Qantas, this graph below shows that for the last five months, VA has beaten it:
Ontime Performance for Qantas and QantasLink | Qantas
The difference in some months is marginal averaged across all flights - VA beat QF by one per cent in the latest available month on the more important arrival times measure - as the BITRE explains for February 2015:
Airline On Time Performance Statistics —Monthly
but nonetheless this must be embarrassing for Qantas.
There can be all sorts of reasons. QF's fleet is larger than VA, while both suffer from episodes of bad weather - yesterday, fog at SYD and later in the day electrical storms - as well as artificial limitations such as SYD airport's not just 80 movements an hour limit but also 20 movements maximum in a quarter hour period (even if the total in an hour will be under 80), the latter an example of irrational regulation by government - so it is not all the airlines' fault, but if I was QF I'd be toning down my claims about domestic flight punctuality a little lest the media eventually notice.
As others have noted there is no similar boasting for international flights by any operator. QF lately has been having more than its fair share of problems with its A388s that at maximum are seven years old: many of these flights are well over 15 minutes late, the standard allowance above which a flight is regarded as 'late.' Competitors are not immune: yesterday, a CX flight was around four hours late into MEL. However there is not the same emphasis in advertising of international carriers on punctuality performance.
Do punctuality perceptions by route influence your decision as to whom to fly with domestically? What about internationally?
This is even though travellers know that safety is the number one objective and that punctuality measured in this way is an average of all flights and can vary markedly from day to day - flights are not as reliable as a much needed high speed lower east coast rail network would be - and vary hugely by route. For instance, QF has many problems on its Tasmanian routes with the B717s.
QF in particular likes to boast about its supposedly better punctuality. Both operators tend to emphasise 'punctual departures' whereas for travellers the key is 'how late was my flight when it arrived at my destination airport?' Unfortunately though for Qantas, this graph below shows that for the last five months, VA has beaten it:
Ontime Performance for Qantas and QantasLink | Qantas
The difference in some months is marginal averaged across all flights - VA beat QF by one per cent in the latest available month on the more important arrival times measure - as the BITRE explains for February 2015:
Airline On Time Performance Statistics —Monthly
but nonetheless this must be embarrassing for Qantas.
There can be all sorts of reasons. QF's fleet is larger than VA, while both suffer from episodes of bad weather - yesterday, fog at SYD and later in the day electrical storms - as well as artificial limitations such as SYD airport's not just 80 movements an hour limit but also 20 movements maximum in a quarter hour period (even if the total in an hour will be under 80), the latter an example of irrational regulation by government - so it is not all the airlines' fault, but if I was QF I'd be toning down my claims about domestic flight punctuality a little lest the media eventually notice.
As others have noted there is no similar boasting for international flights by any operator. QF lately has been having more than its fair share of problems with its A388s that at maximum are seven years old: many of these flights are well over 15 minutes late, the standard allowance above which a flight is regarded as 'late.' Competitors are not immune: yesterday, a CX flight was around four hours late into MEL. However there is not the same emphasis in advertising of international carriers on punctuality performance.
Do punctuality perceptions by route influence your decision as to whom to fly with domestically? What about internationally?
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